Puzzles Like You
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Mojave 3
Puzzles Like You
[ 4AD / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 24 July 2026
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Mojave 3's founding members are vocalist/guitarist Neil Halstead, bassist/vocalist Rachel Goswell, and drummer Ian McCutcheon.
The band broke cover in 1995, when a six-track demo impressed 4AD sufficiently to offer them a deal, despite a then-prevailing musical climate of bumptious Britpop that seemed totally at odds with what Mojave 3 were doing.
Their incongruence was hardly surprising given that Halstead, Goswell and McCutcheon had formed as members of definitive shoegazers Slowdive, while guitarist Simon Rowe had previously served with dreampop kindred spirits Chapterhouse.
Mojave 3's debut, Ask Me Tomorrow, was a refreshingly stripped-down collection that changed little from the original demos. Halstead's melodic, folk- and country-tinged songs drew favourable (if lazy) comparisons to Nick Drake, Cowboy Junkies and Bob Dylan.
Three years later, Out Of Tune continued where the first album left off and showed a group that had grown in both confidence and cohesiveness.
Third album Excuses For Travellers contained some of the most ambitious Halstead compositions yet.
Spoon and Rafter followed three years later, marking another shift for the band. While still containing echoes of singer-songwriters and alt-country, the record represents a technicolor expansion of their palette that utilizes electronics, glockenspiels, melodica, and Beatlesque production.
Their final album, 2006's Puzzles Like You, is a positively bright and fun record that feels right at home next to indie rock contemporaries like The Shins and Band of Horses, while sounding nearly unrecognizable next to the band they were on Ask Me Tomorrow.
"That Neil Halstead is fast becoming one of Britain's greatest songwriters is beyond doubt."
- Time Out [UK]
Mojave 3 began in '94, with Rachel Goswell, Neil Halstead and Ian McCutcheon ditching their noisier band Slowdive for simple songs that could be written and played on acoustic guitar - with 4AD releasing their debut 'Ask Me Tomorrow' almost immediately. Their ranks swelled over the years and two more albums of gorgeous country rock followed ['Out Of Tune' and 'Excuses For Travellers'], before releasing what some would argue is their most outstanding album, '03's 'Spoon and Rafter'.
'Spoon and Rafter' was an album composed and recorded in widescreen, glorious technicolour, with a luxurious sense of space and lavish attention to detail in the arrangements. There was a gentle, but thoroughgoing ambition throughout.
And so to the band's 5th album 'Puzzles Like You', which sees Mojave 3 moving again in a slightly unexpected direction. 'Puzzles Like You' is filled with the life-affirming light of their Cornish base - splashed with sunlight and the heady sparkle of summertime waves. The songs fizz past, brimming with renewed confidence - as with soaring single "Breaking the Ice".
It's fair enough to say that 'Puzzles Like You' is the most approachable, infectious and downright fun record Mojave 3 have ever made. It seems set, like all of its predecessors progressively have to bring the band to a wider audience - and let's face it, when people fall under the spell of Mojave 3's gorgeous and affecting music, they tend to stick around.
"Halstead… finds a soundscape as lush, sparse and fragile as his words and voice. The combination is a rare work of understated genius."
- Sound Nation ('Spoon and Rafter' review, 2004)
"These are some of the strongest, most involving songs the band have ever recorded."
- All Music Guide
Tracks:
1. Truck Driving Man
2. Puzzles Like You
3. Running With Your Eyes Closed
4. Big Star Baby
5. Breaking The Ice
6. Most Days
7. Ghost Ship Waiting
8. Kill The Lights
9. You've Said It Before
10. To Hold Your Tiny Toes
11. Just A Boy
12. Mutineer
